Myanmar bucks Asia trend in media freedom

January 30, 2013: Myanmar's “paper revolution" has brought a sharp improvement in freedom of information in the former pariah state, bucking a general deterioration across much of Asia, a report said on Wednesday. Thanks to dramatic changes, Myanmar rose to 151st out of 179 in the 2013 World Press Freedom Index, an improvement of 18 places, according to Reporters Without Borders. "There are no longer any journalists or cyber dissidents in the jails of the old military dictatorship," it said. In August, Myanmar announced the end of pre-publication censorship that was a hallmark of decades of military rule which finished in 2011. The blossoming of media freedom stands in stark contrast to worsening repression elsewhere in Asia, according to the Paris-based media watchdog “Reporteres Sans Frontieres”- RSF .
"Legislative reform has only just begun but the steps already taken by the government in favour of the media, such as an end to prior censorship and the permitted return of media organizations from exile, are significant steps towards genuine freedom of information," RSF said. The Indian subcontinent saw a sharp deterioration, with journalists around the region facing the threat of violence. In India,numbering 140^th in the index, the authorities insist on censoring the web and imposing more and more taboos, while violence against journalists goes unpunished and the regions of Kashmir and Chhattisgarh become increasingly isolated." Malaysia fell 23 places to 145th, its lowest-ever, because access to information is becoming more and more limited.